Standing Courage
by SeeingSnitches
Summary: Neville continues to fight, even when the Battle of Hogwarts seems lost. A one-shot regarding Neville's Nagini moment and part of the ensuing madness. Includes some Hannah/Neville shipping.


**Disclaimer: I did not write Harry Potter or come up with any of the characters mentioned. If I did, I wouldn't make so many punctuation errors.**

**A/N: My first fanfic! My apologies if I have done anything wrong; I'm quite new to this site. :)**

**Quotes come from Chapter 36 of Deathly Hallows. Neville is a BAMF.**

_"You see? said Voldemort, "Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"_

No. No. He was wrong. He was the one deluded, not they. Harry Potter never sacrificed his friends for himself - his friends chose to sacrifice themselves for him, for his cause. His friends would rather die than join the Dark Lord's cowardly ranks, but Voldemort wouldn't understand that. Neville pushed forward through the crowd; although he could hear the Dark Lord's voice well enough from the back of the throng, he still couldn't believe it, that Harry Potter had died, until he could truly see it...

Outcries rose from the students, teachers, and other defenders of Hogwarts, but Neville didn't join in. He couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it...

_"He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds," said Voldemort, and there was relish in his voice..._

No. Neville racked his brains to remember that last fleeting moment he had spoken to Harry -

_"It's all part of the plan, there's something I've got to do..."_

Harry said he wasn't turning himself in, he said it not too long ago, he said he _"might be out of sight for a while"_, not that he was going to die. Neville made sure that wasn't his intention. He wouldn't lie to him, would he? Voldemort would. Frustration and confusion began to cloud his mind. He clenched his fists, and his advances forward became more and more frantic. When he got to the third row, Neville finally got view of Harry's body, lying motionless on the lawn of Hogwarts - limp, actually lifeless, gone! Neville was dumbstruck. Harry – _Harry!_

_"…killed while trying to save himself -"_

Lie. _Lie! _Fury welled from deep inside; all the pain and destruction that this creature had created - his parents, his friends, and now Harry - all came rushing back and sparked immediate action…

People tried to restrain him - several gripped at his robe, and those in the front line nearly held him back, but none truly succeeded; after a short scuffle, he finally stumbled into the no-man's-land between those defending Hogwarts and those attacking it. He raised his wand, but a flash of light preceded a bang that erupted from his right; the spell caused his knees to buckle beneath him and sent a wave of searing fire through his legs. He let out a grunt of pain as his only weapon flew from his grip. He now lay face down alongside Harry. He could now smell the singed grass before Hogwarts School.

Laughter. _Laughter._ It was the worse kind of pain yet... the Dark Lord laughing at him as he lay there, motionless and wandless, without another to stand up alongside him against this - this _villainy_.

_"And who is this?" he said in his soft snake's hiss. "Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?"_

Another laugh rang through the lawn, although this one froze him to the core. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and an icy hatred replaced the once burning fury that coursed through his veins previously. Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who had tortured his parents, the woman who had devastated countless other families, the woman who was so vile, so deranged, that to call her a human at all would almost be far-fetched, was the next to speak in her high, shrill voice -

_"It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?"_

Hatred pounded in his ears as tears - tears? - swam in his eyes... he had to move, he wasn't done here, not yet, even if he was without his wand... Suddenly, his last promise to Harry came to him, and finally he had a target, a reason for his action: _Kill the snake._

_"Ah, yes, I remember," said Voldemort, looking down at Neville, who was struggling back to his feet..._

He felt weaker - that last spell was more than a blow to the knees: it felt as though the Hogwarts Express had rolled over his legs a few times. But he had to stand, he had to look strong - that's what Harry had done, and that's what Dumbledore's Army had done for the past school year. He had to look strong so the others knew there was still a fight left. It wasn't over yet.

_"But you are a pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy?"_

_"So what if I am?" said Neville loudly._

Although he wobbled slightly, his message was clear, strong. His hands were still clenched in fists from his break from the throng, though one now lacked the wand that was his last defense.

_"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."_

The offer came unexpected, and it only made Neville more furious. He fully despised this creature, and the cowards that flanked him on each side. Neville felt courage pounding in his chest as he dared to stare into those red eyes, and nowhere else. Those red, pitiful eyes, exempt of love and bravery and all of the values Dumbledore and Harry had taught them...

_"I'll join you when Hell freezes over," _he spat, clenching his teeth and not daring to blink or break contact with his terrible gaze.

_"Dumbledore's Army!"_

The rally cry worked, as many of the survivors answered with a roar of approval that broke the barriers of Voldemort's Silencing Charms.

_"Very well," said Voldemort... "If that is your choice, Longbottom, we revert to the original plan. On your head," he said quietly, "be it."_

Neville tensed, preparing for pain, but instead of cursing him, Voldemort's wand summoned something from the castle. The eye contact broke when he turned to figure out what the Dark Lord had desired - one of Filch's torturing devices? No, the object flew through the air limp and lifeless. Brown and mottled, he didn't recognize the Sorting Hat until it was almost in Voldemort's grasp. Confused, the entire crowd of survivors and Death Eaters watched curiously as Voldemort shook the hat from it's end.

_"There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School," said Voldemort. "There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for everyone. Won't they, Neville Longbottom?"_

Suddenly, all went rigid - his swaying legs locked together and his arms went flat by his side. Stunned, he had no choice but to stand there as Voldemort approached him to shove the hat on his head. It slipped down to his nose - whose head did it ever fit, anyway - and Neville was surprised to feel a thud on his head. Weight pressed down from above, Neville assumed this was some doing of Voledmort's, as he heard movement from behind and before him. Something was happening, if he could only see -

_"Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me..."_

He closed his eyes, preparing for anything, and sure enough the hat lit on fire.

Neville stood, rooted to the spot. He should feel pain. This should inflict some damage. But all he felt was warmth around his ears; he opened his eyes a fraction, and saw the bright light of flames flickering around his head. He was on fire but remained, somehow, untouched. The weight of an object pressed harder on his skull. Screams penetrated the Silencing Charms again before a pounding of heavy footsteps and hooves sounded behind Voldemort and his ranks. Chaos, he could tell, broke loose - somehow, Neville squirmed free of the binding charm. He immediately threw off the burning hat, plunged his hand in it's depths, and pulled out the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

The sword, it seemed, had come from nowhere, though Neville knew that somehow, someway, the still-burning Sorting Hat had been aware of the moment and was delivering one final blow to it's would-be destroyer. Almost instinctively, and as if all of those Dumbledore's Army meetings had prepared him for this moment, Neville gripped tightly the glittering, rubied hilt and, with all the force he could muster, brought it down upon the neck of the giant snake.

It had all happened in a moment, although the next minute felt as though it were a lifetime. The stampede of centaurs, firing arrows into the crowd of dark-cloaked Death Eaters, trampled the fallen as giants joined the resurrected fight. Hazed by what he had just done and once again weak in the legs, Neville staggered backwards, not in the least bit aware of his surroundings or the fact that three spells, all aimed in his direction, had just buffeted off of him. A pair of hands grabbed his free arm and dragged him from the center of the fray - Neville was slowly regaining consciousness at this point - that he had done it, he had satisfied Harry's final request, and even if Harry was gone, the battle was not over. He was still fighting. Dumbledore's Army didn't fade away at the death of it's namesake, and it's not going to, even if it's founder had gone, too... It was poetic, almost...

A bright jet of green narrowly missed his left ear, and Neville snapped back to the present. As he was stumbling backwards, he caught sight of the attacker - a monster of a man, garbed in black and well-scarred from battle, sped toward him, blasting away students and all other obstacles from his path with a few flicks of his wand and made to attack him once more. Realizing this, Neville shook off his rescuer to free his wand arm, searched his robes for his familiar weapon, only to find it missing. He was disarmed, and for the first time this battle, he felt helpless, lost. Before he realized that the sword he still gripped could be of some use too, the person that had dragged him from the fray stepped forward and sent a flurry of jinxes at the Death Eater. Stunned, covered in growing blisters and bound by a constricting cord, he stumbled back into the massive surge of bodies and was trampled underfoot.

"Hannah," Neville croaked, but he couldn't say another word for the blonde, pig-tailed girl spun on the spot and, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressed her lips to his. His heart skipped several beats, and complete happiness surged through his veins. He dropped the sword on the spot and returned the kiss, forgetting the world, the destruction, the mess he would have to help clean up - he was, for the moment, in a state of bliss, and he didn't want to turn back, not yet. He held her tightly and lifted her off the ground for a second, pulling away from her lips to look into her eyes... weak though he felt, her gaze renewed his strength indefinitely. "I - I never expected that from you," he whispered, referring to both the jinxes and the kiss.

"Nor I, you," she couldn't help but respond. Hannah Abbott's dark brown eyes searched his for a moment before her wide smile began to fade. Shouts, blasts, and screams from the battle brought them back to reality. "You've done so wonderfully, Neville," she continued, lightly touching the side of his face with one hand, "Now let's win this war, once and for all." She stepped back, grabbed the sword, and put it in his hand. "I think this belongs to you, Mr. Gryffindor." And with another smile, she turned and was gone, into the swarm, alongside Seamus Finnigan, nearly as quickly as she had appeared.

Neville only took another moment to gather his mind, to comprehend all that he had just done, to come to know that all of it actually happened, none of it was fantasy... And he, too, charged into the Great Hall, wielding the sword of his house's original founder high above his head. Joining a group of younger students, he rallied them with another cry: "_Dumbledore's Army_!"


End file.
